Myths, Legends, and Heroes for Wynston, with Vector. (Someday I really need to get Wynston, Kaliyo, and Vector all in the same scene.) No game spoilers, 600 words.

Spoiler

Vector and Wynston were sitting in the dining room, talking about nothing in particular. Somewhere along the way it turned to myths and ancient stories – much more Vector's bailiwick than Wynston's, but Wynston's perspective might be enlightening.

"The Chiss have a very rich cultural history." Vector said Chiss, not 'your people.' The Empire was the only nest Wynston acknowledged; the very mention of the Chiss was what had first taught Vector what Wynston's aura signaled when he was upset. "Many scholars have attempted to draw out their mythology in their studies. Few have met with any success."

"If you promise not to credit me I can tell you what I know sometime." Wynston's aura took on an acrid edge at odds with his casual speech. "I don't know if the mythology you learn in the working world is the same as what the aristocracy gets, though."

"You feel no attachment to either?"

"Of course I don't. Folklore has its uses but I've never found it interesting."

Utility as always, and a sidestep of the actual question. Vector chose to go with it. "We should think it would help in new contact situations. These stories teach what a culture values, and by extension what any given contact might find flattering, desirable, or both."

"I can ferret that out quickly enough anyway, or just check Intelligence files." Wynston leaned back a little. His aura didn't get any calmer. "Frankly I find the stories rather dull. They're all the same. Some hero finds the strength or the trick, often not entirely on his own merits. Any allies he has in this spout platitudes like there's no tomorrow. Hero saves the day. Hero gets the girl. Or he doesn't get the girl because she's taken elsewhere, some fate drops her into the underworld and she never returns. That one manages to be both trite and depressing. I never liked the lack of agency for her, any more than I like the fact that the hero can never reverse it. I can give you examples of any of those stories with very real and very relevant people; why fetishize any of it?"

"It teaches people the universal stories that inform our lives. That education, and the sense of belonging created by sharing it with sentients across history, is the point." It was, perhaps, as close to the nest consciousness as non-Killiks got.

"I prefer my life lessons to be given by the living. You get to offer more immediate feedback that way." Wynston gestured dismissively. "But like I said, if it's important to you we can sit down sometime and I'll tell what stories I remember. I do realize that you and the other students of culture aren't likely to get that offer from a real Chiss."

"We will not ask for what you're uncomfortable giving."

Wynston smiled crookedly. "I don't need to see auras to know when you're saying something you don't really want to say. It's really no hardship, we can start right now if you like. I can tell you the story of how curiosity about the leth'danaan in the snows got the Tall Man killed."

"You are very subtle," said Vector.

"As only the old stories know how to be. Now get ready to write this down, I'd hate to have my immortal words forgotten."

His aura smelled of burnt plastoid and a desire to be elsewhere; but what Wynston promised to Vector, Wynston delivered. Vector prepared his holorecorder and listened. Wynston told the old stories of the one place he had been that he refused to go back to. Fifteen years in exile didn't seem to have worn away any of the details.

Spoiler

Timewise this probably occurs during the Act 2/3 break or shortly thereafter, putting it well after the earlier Discoveries of Hoth but before endgame and the post-endgameAffection piece.